The Secret Society of Upstairs at Eric's
So I had an entry, pulled it last night, reposting this morning. As I found a holy grail of mine yesterday, which is the Yaz Upstairs at Eric’s cassette tape. And I thought about it all night and all morning.
It was an unspoken subculture in the early ‘80s. Where people who had it, had it, and people who didn’t, didn’t. But I was only partially kidding when I said, if we met last century, this is the basis of our friendship. Or this was probably the basis of our friendship.
But there is a kinship with people who had it and get it, and people who didn’t. And so many people across the middle school and high school popularity spectrum had it.
I don’t know if it was happening in Houston alone, but I know it was happening in Dallas, and I’ve had people I’m not friends with comment on this post about how important that cassette was to people.
There were a few like it, but this was the one that if you’ve got it, it’s understood. It was unnamed, and you didn’t even have to talk about it. You just knew that they had it and listened to it.
More than Depeche Mode, more than Erasure after it, more than the second Yaz album. This was a cultural touchstone that was undiscussed. I feel bad about discussing it right now.
There was just something about the music, something about the time, something about Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet not being friends, something about this producer.
At one point, Vince Clarke said he was probably going to go back to the factory instead of being in another band. And I get it, bands can be super unfun and weird. But something about all that was captured.
There are so few individual tracks within the songs, there’s hardly anything going on. Very spare. Just some sequencers, some brilliant songs, and the juxtaposition of a bluesy, throaty female vocal.
And I think there was tension in these two not being friends or a real group. And you see this in Vince Clarke’s interviews, of which I’ve read every single one. He wasn’t very friendly. He was super bristly and prickly.
But I would say he was not outwardly friendly, but he seems like a really friendly guy. And then coming back and meeting these people later, like Martin Gore of Depeche Mode and Alison Moyet. They formed some kind of relationship for the first time in their lives. But before that, he was just this enigma passing through theirs.
Amazing.
And I’m reserving tomorrow for more thoughts on this, because I listened to the whole thing on headphones on a Walkman yesterday. And it was just brilliant, from start to finish.
I realized there are parts I haven’t listened to. Or that I would skip or flip the tape over or go do something else.
But at a time when you could probably keep a tape in your Walkman, or your car, or your tape deck at home for a week, and not change it, which is hard to understand these days, but it was just something you did.
Easier to listen than fast-forward through another song, because it’s a bit of a pain.
Not saying it was better or worse. Or anything boomery like that.
I’m just saying it was a singular experience experienced by a crazy cross section of people. That to this day will stop what they’re doing and talk about it and reminiscing.
And it’s just great.